


Revelations

by Alex51324



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex51324/pseuds/Alex51324
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation between Thomas and Mrs. Hughes.  If you've seen 3X08, you know which one.  Mrs. Hughes learns something about Thomas.  Thomas learns even more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revelations

**Author's Note:**

> Contains massive spoilers for 3X08, references to homophobia, reference to suicide. Also vulnerable!Thomas and BAMF!Mrs. Hughes.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm sort of half-planning a long!fic where I go through series 3 focusing on Thomas's perspective, adding missing scenes, and his thought about the scenes we saw, to flesh out his motivations and character development. Working title, "The Thomas Barrow Show." Think of this as a sneak preview and/or a test balloon to see if there's interest in the longer project.

“Shock and disgust? My, my. I think I have to hear it now,” Mrs. Hughes said. Then she put her arm around him and ushered him inside, into her parlour where she sat him down by the parlour with a towel, and bustled about fixing tea while he dried off and thawed out. 

He wanted to lie—to say something that would let him keep this moment, where he was being taken care of, like he wasn’t _something foul_. But he was too tired to think up a convincing story—something that he might think would shock and disgust her, but that really wouldn’t. Instead, when she handed him a cup of hot, sweet tea and sat down across from him, an expectant look on her face, he wrapped his hands around the warmth and said, “I’m not…like other men.”

He waited for the expected look of disgust and shock to pass over her face, as she realized what he means. She waited, impassive and patient as a shepherd in a nativity painting. “Maybe you noticed, I’ve taken a bit of an interest in Jimmy. James,” he corrected himself.

“I know who you mean,” she said gently. “And yes, I’d noticed.”

“Well, it’s not….” He didn’t know what to say. He’s never actually _told_ anyone before. Been found out, yes. Made vague hints about being “different,” a few times. More often, he’s made his feelings clear with a gesture, which in his experience has worked more often than it hasn’t. But he’s never even hinted about the subject to a woman before—why would he? “It’s not a normal sort of interest,” he said in a rush. “I’m…drawn to him. And he’s not the first. Not the first man I’ve felt that way about. And I don’t feel that way about girls. Ever. I’ve tried, but I’m just not interested.” He couldn’t possibly make it any clearer than that, he thought, and he really ought to have finished his tea before he said it. Maybe he would take the cup with him when she threw him out.

But she just said, “I see.” 

Well, like he told Mr. Carson, it isn’t against the law to hope. Maybe she realized that, even though Mr. Carson didn’t seem to think much of the distinction. He went on, “So the other night, I went into his room and kissed him. While he was sleeping. He didn’t—after he woke up he said he’d punch me if I didn’t get out. I thought he was interested. I…misunderstood.” Even after all that happened, he didn’t want to leave Mrs. Hughes thinking that Jimmy was like him. Jimmy didn’t deserve that. 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Mrs. Hughes said. Her tone was mild, but Thomas braced himself to hear about how it’s against the laws of God and man. “No one is at his best when woken unexpectedly in the middle of the night.”

“What?” Thomas said dully. Of all the things to criticize about his behavior, the _timing_ seemed the least important.

“Well, if he _had_ been interested, he’d have missed your first kiss, being asleep when it happened,” she said, very reasonably. “And, as he wasn’t interested, if he was awake he’d have had time to warn you off before there needed to be any talk of punching anyone.”

“I didn’t think of it that way,” he said cautiously, testing this newly-shifted ground underneath his feet. “I had just—nerved myself up to do it, and then he was asleep, so….” He shook his head.

“You should have thought,” Mrs. Hughes said. “More tea? How would you like it if someone kissed you while you were sleeping?”

Holding out his cup, Thomas muttered, “If it was Jimmy, I wouldn’t mind,” feeling just a little shocked at his own daring, saying a thing like that out loud.

Mrs. Hughes didn’t bat an eye at the admission, but asked as she poured, “What if it were, say, Daisy?” 

He gulped. “Er….”

“I remember a time when she had reason to think you were interested.” 

Now Thomas was almost as shocked as he’d expected Mrs. Hughes to be, at the idea that there was any comparison to be made between the sort of longings he had and a kitchen maid mooning about. He’d often thought that it would be a lovely sort of world if men like him could simply go about their business, falling in love and flirting and courting the same as anyone else. But somehow, he’d never really thought about how even in a world like that, he still couldn’t just do whatever he liked. The others could let it be known they were interested in each other—the whole tangle of Jimmy and Ivy and Alfred and Daisy, for instance. They wouldn’t have Mr. Carson telling them they ought to be horsewhipped for _hoping_ , but they weren’t exactly free to _do_ anything about it, either. 

After exploring this unfamiliar corridor of thought for a moment, Thomas said, “You’d have sacked her for being on the men’s side in the first place.” 

“I may well have done,” she agreed. “Or I may simply have told her she’d been a very foolish girl and ought to know better, and as long as she’d learnt her lesson, we’d say no more about it.” 

Perhaps in deference to his status as valet, Mrs. Hughes didn’t complete the thought, but she didn’t have to. Thomas had thought there were only two ways of seeing what he had done: either he was a vicious degenerate, a corrupting influence, foul and revolting—or he was a blameless victim of society’s prejudices. _Foolish boy who ought to know better was_ …not exactly flattering, particularly with the comparison to Daisy. But it made a change from _dangerous pervert_. 

Mrs. Hughes went on, “Is that what has you so distraught? Being disappointed in love?”

Another little shock, having what he feels referred to as _love_ and not as something uglier. “No. If only that were all it is. Jimmy—I think Jimmy would have kept his mouth shut about it. But Alfred saw…most of it. He came in just as Jimmy woke up. I don’t know why. And he told Mr. Carson. Mr. Carson thought it best that I resign…he said I could use Mr. Bates’s return as an excuse.”

“And you don’t want to leave? It might be the best thing, after all. To make a fresh start.”

“No, that’s not all. I mean, I don’t particularly want to leave, but I can’t make a fresh start, because now Jimmy’s told Mr. Carson that unless I’m let go without a reference, he’ll notify the police.” Now, if she wasn’t going to be disgusted, she’d probably pity him. He wasn’t sure if he liked that any better. 

But Mrs. Hughes just said, “My, that does seem like an overreaction. There isn’t a woman alive who hasn’t been kissed at least once by a man she’d rather hadn’t. If we all went crying for the police every time it happened, they’d never have time for anything else.” 

The thought of Mrs. Hughes being kissed—willingly or not—was almost enough to distract Thomas from his troubles. Then he wondered about Miss O’Brien, and Mrs. Patmore, for that matter. Pushing those mental pictures aside, he mumbled something about how he supposed they wouldn’t. 

“But surely Mr. Carson didn’t agree,” she went on. “If nothing else, he can’t allow a footman to dictate to him.”

“Oh, he agreed,” Thomas said hollowly. “He has some sympathy for how ‘Nature has twisted me into something foul,’ but not enough to make a point about it.” He glanced up at her, over the rim of his cup. “That’s what he said I was, something foul. And revolting. I don’t think I’m something foul. I know I’m supposed to, but I don’t.” He said it defiantly, but it was only half-true. He didn’t want to think so. He could tell himself that if, for instance, God was against it, God had no one but Himself to blame for making him that way. But he wasn’t quite so arrogant that he could believe, really be absolutely sure deep in his heart, that he was right about this, and everyone else was wrong. 

Mrs. Hughes wasn’t answering, and maybe he’d gone too far. Maybe she could manage him being the way he was, but saying that he didn’t think it was _bad_ was just too much. He said quickly, “Anyway, that’s not important. I’m being chucked out without a reference, after ten years. I’m ruined. I’ll never get another place in service—and I’m a little bit too old to go like Ethel did. It’s mostly lads under twenty who are successful in that line.” 

“There’s no need for vulgarity, Mr. Barrow,” she said sharply. 

He almost laughed, but a glance at her face suggested that she was completely serious. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hughes,” he said contritely. 

“All right,” she said, and softened. “I certainly don’t think you’re foul.” 

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for saying that. It’s just—I’ve no idea what I’m going to do. Mr. Carson said I can stay for a day or two, but after that…I just don’t know.” 

“I’m glad Mr. Carson at least has enough kindness in him not to cast you out into the rain,” she said, with a slight shake of her head. 

Thomas nodded. He hated having to feel grateful to Carson, but there it was. He could have thrown Thomas out the moment he heard what he’d done. 

“You haven’t any family to go back to, until you find a new place?” she went on.

He shook his head. “No. My parents are gone, and my sister…she does think I’m foul. Doesn’t want me near her kids.” She might send him a little money, if he was starving and wrote to hint that he just might turn up on her doorstep if she didn’t leave him any choice. But she’d never let him stay there, no matter what he said, and he wouldn’t be able to pry enough brass out of her to make a real difference. 

“Well, that’s a crying shame. Family ought to be the ones we can trust to stick by us, no matter what happens.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Some people have families like that.” He returned to the point. “So I have a day or two to sort out what I’m going to do, but all I’ve thought of so far is going out into the wood and sitting on the ground until I freeze to death.”

Now Mrs. Hughes _did_ look shocked. “You mustn’t do that.”

“I don’t think I will,” he said. It would take more courage, in a way, than he had. “But I haven’t had a better idea yet.”

“You might begin by taking a room at a pub,” she suggested sensibly. “You’ll have some wages coming to you, at least.”

“And I’ll run through it like that,” Thomas said, snapping his fingers. 

“So you’ll have to find a new job faster than that,” she answered, copying the gesture. “For a man, there are other lines of work beyond service and--” She hesitated only slightly, “—prostitution.”

“That I can get into with no training and no reference? Name one.” He knew he oughtn’t to bark at her, when she was trying to be kind. But he resented her trying to cheer him up; it wasn’t that easy.

“Well.” She thought for a moment. “Factories, I’ve heard, aren’t terribly particular about references. I can’t say as it would suit you, but it’s better than freezing to death.”

Barely, Thomas thought, with an inward shudder. 

After pouring the last of the tea from the pot into his cup, Mrs. Hughes said, “I can’t agree with sending you away without a reference. It would be one thing if you’d only just got here and had an old character you could use, or if you were a young man who could pretend to be looking for his first place. But you’ve spent your whole career at Downton—you’ve practically grown up here.”

“I know,” Thomas said. God, he knew. “Somehow, nobody’s particularly interested in my opinion on the matter,” he said into the empty depths of his teacup. 

“Well, they might be interested in mine,” Mrs. Hughes said. 

He looked up. 

“I’ll speak to Mr. Carson,” she said. “And to Jimmy, if necessary. There must be something that can be done. Perhaps—well, no, Mr. Carson would never agree to that. But something.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said. He didn’t think there was—he’d thought about the matter backwards and forwards. But it was kind of her to say she’d try. 

He wondered if she’d heard him, that awful night when Lady Sybil died, saying how not many people were ever kind to him. He thought maybe she had, because as she stood up and collected his teacup, she said, “We all need someone to be kind to us now and then, Mr. Barrow. Now, if I were you, I’d try to get a bit of sleep; you might see things more clearly in the morning.”

He stood. “Good night, Mrs. Hughes.”

“Good night, Mr. Barrow.”


End file.
